Al-Mu'tamid

al-Mu'tamid (842-15 October 892) was the Abbasid Caliph from 16 June 870 to 15 October 892, succeeding al-Muhtadi and preceding al-Mu'tadid. During his reign, the Anarchy at Samarra came to an end, but the Abbasids lost their control over the Islamic world, and he was a powerless ruler.

Biograhy
al-Mu'tamid was the son of al-Mutawakkil and a Kufan slave girl, and the Turkish soldiers of Baghdad named him al-Muhtadi's successor in 870. The "Anarchy at Samarra" came to an end with al-Mu'tamid's election, but the Abbasid Caliphate had lost control of Egypt to the Tulunid dynasty and Central Asia to the Saffarid dynasty. In the Arabian Peninsula, local potentates took power, leaving the Abbasids with little authority outside of Iraq. He lacked experience in politics and a power base, and his brother al-Muwaffaq controlled the military, but he managed to defeat a Saffarid invasion of Iraq at Dayr al-'Aqul on 8 April 876. In 883, the Zanj rebellion fell when their capital of Mukhtara fell to the Abbasid armies. In 882, he attempted to flee to Tulunid Egypt to escape confinement in Samarra under his brother, al-Muwaffaq, and he was placed under house arrest. When al-Muwaffaq died, al-Mu'tamid's loyalists attempted to seize power, but they were defeated by the caliph's nephew al-Mu'tadid, who became the new regent and, upon al-Mu'tamid's death in 892, caliph.